


Mornin’, Sunshine

by starlight_and_seafire



Series: Damerey Week 2019 [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Minor Injuries, POV Rey (Star Wars), Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 05:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_and_seafire/pseuds/starlight_and_seafire
Summary: When a mission goes wrong, Poe and Rey have to quickly escape from danger and, in doing so, are unable to make it back to the Falcon before night falls. They find refuge in a little motel, where they get the last room available.And there's only one bed.





	Mornin’, Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> For Damerey Week - Day 2: “Sunshine”, Favorite Tropes, Comfort
> 
> Warnings: There’s a mention of blood from a minor injury. There is also one curse word in here.
> 
> And only one bed.

In retrospect, she should have seen it coming.

Not because she’s a Jedi — or trying to be, it’s hard to tell exactly when your Master is a Force Ghost, and dozens of other former Jedi seem to be competing with him to get a word in edgewise — but because everything had been going so well.

And she’s found that when things seem to be going well, that’s usually when everything goes belly up.

Besides, it’s not exactly like General Organa is going to be sending her top people, those she can least afford to lose, on some mission that any old person could take care of.

So, when she grabs the datachip from the drawer and unleashes holy hells on top of them, she’s a little angry at herself.

Finn radios in from his perch outside the heavily fortified compound where he’s stationed at the only entrance in order to keep them from being surprised by anyone else who decides to take an interest in the building. “What’s happening?”

She’s grabbed Poe’s hand, dragging him out of the room as the roof literally begins to fall down on top of them. “Oh, the building is falling down,” she mutters into her comm, her voice strangely calm as they start running through the halls.

It seems like every few feet there’s another obstacle, another booby trap, but right now their only option is to get out of there as fast as possible.

Did the floor just collapse behind them?

“There’s no way we can get back to the entrance,” she shouts, her adrenaline spiking, as the walls rumble around her. She’s not really sure if she’s telling Finn or Poe that. At least Poe can see exactly what’s going on as he runs next to her, blaster in hand.

Honestly, she’s not sure what good the blaster will do here. Blasters won’t do anything against what she assumes to be a very poisonous liquid oozing down the walls.

Then again, she’s got her lightsaber in hand, so she can’t really judge.

She can practically feel Finn’s alarm through the comm, and as soon as she darts out of the way of a burst of fire, she tells them, “But I think there’s another way out.”

She manages to guide them out of the building, crawling through a narrow gap that leads into the streets of the city.

On the opposite side of where they’d entered.

She can sense numerous beings headed their way, the rumble of speeders and other vehicles dashing down the roads. She can only assume that the various obstacles were put in place to either kill intruders, or in the event that failed, to delay them enough to provide the soldiers enough time to get to the compound to take care of them themselves.

Although she doesn’t say a word to him, Poe seems to sense the danger too. This time it’s him who radios Finn. “We’ve got incoming company, buddy. Get out of here and get back to the ship. Tell Rose and BeeBee, in case we need to make a quick getaway.”

Two hours later and they haven’t been able to make it back to the ship and night’s falling. It’s too dangerous to head back to the ship now where it’s safely nestled outside the city in a forest . . . a forest inhabited by more than a few terrifying creatures.

At least they don’t eat metal, she thinks, so all of the Falcon’s inhabitants should be safe for the night.

Once they’re sure they’re in the clear, Poe darts into a nearby motel while she keeps watch outside. He returns minutes later with a key and motions for her to follow. “We got lucky. It’s the last room they had left.”

He turns the lock and opens the door.

She would laugh if it wasn’t for the fact that her heart suddenly started racing.

“I, uh, can go back and see if they have something else,” Poe manages to stutter out, already turning to head to the office.

“I thought you said it was the last room they had?”

He stops but doesn’t turn back towards her. “Yeah, but maybe—”

She thinks she catches an edge of desperation in his voice and winces at the idea that he finds the idea of sharing a bed so distasteful that he’d rather put his hopes in a fruitless endeavor.

She’s sitting on the floor of the room rifling through her bag, checking and doublechecking its contents, when he returns.

“No luck,” he says, shaking his head.

She shrugs and tosses a ration bar at him. “Might as well eat and get cleaned up then.” She’s already walking to the small refresher when she says, “I call the shower first.”

If her shoulders sag a little when she closes the door behind her, well, at least no one can see her. She turns on the shower, letting the water heat up as she examines her reflection in the dirty mirror.

She knows she’s probably been too obvious. She was raised by the desert, alone but for the million grains of sand surrounding her and the occasional interaction in the marketplace. She knew her emotions were always plainly visible on her face; she never had to learn how to school her features to hide them.

Besides, Finn and Rose were always able to read her like a book. Her crush on Poe was obvious, and they took pleasure in gently teasing her about it.

To be honest, so did she. It was all in good fun; they were her family, and she found ways to tease them right back.

But the silence from Poe told her everything she needed to know. Poe was a good man. She knew he would never tease her about her feelings for him, not when he so obviously didn’t return them.

She sighs as she turns away from the mirror. She just wishes he didn’t seem so keen on getting away from her. But he’s clearly uncomfortable with the situation, so she resolves to give him as much space as possible.

She steps into the shower, where she spends far longer than she should under the warm spray. The whole hot shower thing is still rather a novelty to her. She only gets out when she worries that she’ll use it all up. The motel doesn’t exactly look like it had the most state-of-the-art water heating equipment.

She dries off, grimacing when she has to put her dirty clothes back on her clean body. At least she can forgo some of the extraneous outer layers though as she prepares for sleep.

She steps into the small room, eyes catching on where Poe sits on the floor now. A blanket sits next to him and she spies the slightly ajar door of the closet. She assumes he must have found the blanket in there. One of the pillows from the bed is next to him, too.

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” she says.

He looks up, eyes catching hers as he gives her a small grin. “Nah, I don’t mind.”

“No, really. You take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He looks like he’s about to protest, so she cuts him off. “Seriously. I’m used to it. It’ll be like old times.” She may have had a hammock there for a few years on Jakku near the end, but still, it was nothing like a real bed.

His face twists into a grimace, and she realizes that she said the wrong thing. Now he’ll never take it.

She sighs lightly, not even loud enough for him to here. Before she can say anything else, he gets up. “Might as well grab my own shower. It’ll be nice to get cleaned up.”

He takes off his jacket and she gasps. He turns to her in surprise before he catches where her eyes are looking. “It’s nothing. I got caught on something turning a corner. Can’t even feel it.”

She strides over quickly, catching his arm in one of her hands while the other gently prods along the edges of the blood stain. There’s a tear in his shirt. Her eyes flick over to his jacket and just barely makes out a gash in the material.

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

“You had more important things to take care of,” he says with a roguish grin. “Besides, like I said, can’t even feel it anymore.”

She doesn’t quite believe him but lets him go off to the shower without any further protest. While he’s in there though, she digs out the rudimentary medical supplies she carries in her bag and sets them on the bed.

When he comes out, he’s put his pants and undershirt back on, but the long-sleeved shirt remains off and he’s holding a towel to the wound.

When he glances her way, she pats the bed next to her, already holding the bacta gel in hand.

He comes to sit next to her even as he glances hesitantly towards the gel she holds. “Maybe we should save that for something more serious?”

“You planning to get even more injured before we get back to the Falcon tomorrow?”

“No. But you never know what could happen.”

She just ignores his protests, and he seems resigned to his fate as she moves his hand out of the way to finally get a good look at the wound. It’s long and jagged and still slowly oozing blood. In her mind, it only further confirms the need for him to use the bacta gel.

She cradles his arm in one of her hands while she gently dabs the gel on with the other. She’s far more careful with him than she would ever be when treating her own wounds, even on Jakku where she had far more rudimentary supplies.

While they wait for the bacta gel to work its magic before she binds his wound, she continues to hold his arm, occasionally risking glances up to look at his profile. Once she thinks she sees a flash of movement, but when she looks, he’s still staring straight ahead toward the small curtained window in the room.

She spies the little air conditioning unit in the corner, thinks maybe they should turn the temperature down a little. Cool air is something she’s grown quite fond of since she left the desert, and she’s feeling a little too warm right now. Poe must be too, if the redness in his cheeks is any indication.

Once the gel has dried, she bandages the wound, taking care not to jostle his arm too much while winding the gauze around, firm but not too restrictive.

“Thank you,” he says when she finishes, his voice so soft she almost misses it. She just gives a short nod, already packaging the supplies up.

He begins to ease himself off the bed. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asks, curtly. He gestures to the floor and she stands, pushing his shoulder a little to keep him sitting. “You take the bed. The floor is filthy. Just because that wound is bandaged doesn’t mean it can’t get infected.”

He rolls his eyes. “It won’t get infected. You take the bed.”

She glares at him.

He glares back.

Eventually, he sighs. “Please.”

“It’s a big enough bed. Why don’t we just each take half?” she bites out. She doesn’t look forward to the further awkwardness that’ll inevitably come when he says no, because he knows this strange, almost feral girl has a crush on him, and he’s just trying to keep the distance between them.

She just barely manages to hide her surprise when he agrees. He must be more tired and hurt than she thought. She’ll have to keep an eye on him.

***

Her instincts, honed to a fine point on Jakku and further sharpened by her Jedi training, had led to her requesting the side closest to the entrance. She was pleasantly surprised that he agreed without any argument. Like her, he’s typically the first to throw himself in danger to protect others when lives were on the line.

Poe gets in bed first, the side furthest from the door, while she looks out the window to scan their surroundings one last time. Her eyes don’t see any danger. And when she reaches out through the Force, she senses none there either.

She turns and sees Poe turned on his side, facing the wall. He’s almost on the edge of the bed, and she half expects to hear a thump in the middle of the night from him falling into the small gap between bed and wall.

She bites back a sigh and thumbs off the lamp as she crawls into bed. She turns on her side, facing the door, facing away from him, and inches as close to the side of the bed as she can can, trying to be as respectful of his wishes and boundaries as she can. She may have a crush on him, but she doesn’t want to make this uncomfortable for him. They’re friends — good friends — and she wants it to stay that way, even if they’ll never be more.

She thinks with the excitement of the day and the awkwardness of their current situation that it’d be hard to get to sleep. But she can just make out his steady breathing in the quiet of the room, feel his presence behind her. It’s a novel experience for her, but it’s also strangely comforting.

She falls asleep far quicker than usual.

***

She doesn’t know what wakes her up. There’s no sense of danger, no unexpected noises. She groggily opens her eyes. It’s still dark.

The only thing she sees is Poe’s face inches from hers, still fast asleep, his eyes still closed, breath slow and steady.

In the drowsy haze of sleep, she studies his face for a long moment, his long eyelashes, his lips just barely parted.

Then she closes her eyes, the image still lingering behind her eyelids, and falls back asleep.

***

The next time she awakens, it’s with the daylight. She’s pleasantly warm, lying comfortably on her back, and she wants to linger in this delightful space between sleep and wake for as long as she can.

It’s only when she starts to grow more alert that she realizes she can feel a steady breath against her shoulder and a somewhat heavy weight across her middle.

She cracks open an eye to see it’s an arm. Specifically, Poe’s arm. Sometime in the night, they both had moved to the middle of the bed and ended up cuddled together. She risks a glance toward him, his face close to hers, almost nestled in the space between her head and shoulder.

She doesn’t want to move, but she can’t imagine how awkward it would be for him if he woke up like this. She doesn’t want to put him through that. She slowly eases her hand down the arm that had been wrapped around her middle (her hand had been gripping his bicep, apparently even in sleep her subconscious wanted to keep him close) until it reaches his wrist and she tries to slowly, gently, move it off her so she can get out of bed.

She’s almost successful, has almost eased it up enough to slip out from underneath it, when she feels him stir.

“Mornin’, sunshine.” His voice is deep, raspy with sleep, and she winces when she realizes she failed.

Then she realizes what he said and braves a look towards him, her eyes wide.

He’s not quite fully awake yet, his eyes still closed, and his breathing remains slow and even. She wonders if he’s going to slip back under.

Then his eyes pop open, going even wider when they lock on her face, and his mouth opens as if he’s about to say something but no words come out.

She just stares back at him.

He finally looks down where his arm still partly rests on her waist and he snatches it back so fast she worries about him hurting himself.

She just plans to ignore the way her own heart clenched at the clear rejection.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he practically gasps out as he turns on his back, hands coming up to rub at his eyes. “I must have moved in my sleep. I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

“No worries,” she says, glad her voice sounds much steadier than she feels as she sits up in bed. “Clearly I moved too.”

He doesn’t seem to hear her, his face still hidden behind his hands. “And calling you sunshine, too, it slipped out, I didn’t mean for you to find out like that.”

“Find what out?”

“I call you sunshine — in my head. It seems fitting. But you probably hate it, so I’ll stop.”

He calls her sunshine? Finn calls her peanut sometimes, but there’s something about this particular term of endearment that causes warmth to unspool in her stomach. She’s just about to tell him that she _likes _it and he doesn’t have to stop but then —

“As if my feelings weren’t already so obvious and now I’ve probably made you really uncomfortable. I knew I should have just stayed on the floor. I’m just so sorry, hopefully I can make it up to you and we can still be friends.”

Her jaw drops even as he shows no signs of stopping, her amazement growing as he continues to stammer out, well, apparently anything and everything that crosses his mind in apology.

In her shock, the only thing she can stammer out is “Your feelings? Obvious?”

He chuckles, though there’s no mirth in it. “Yeah, I know,” he says, missing the question in her voice. “And you’ve been really kind about it, I appreciate that.”

“No, I meant . . . what feelings? There’s been no obvious feelings.”

He finally glances at her from between his fingers before removing his hands from his face completely. “Oh, crap.”

She blinks at him.

“Well, this isn’t exactly how I wanted you to find out either.”

“You have feelings for me?”

He sits up, wrapping his arms around his knees before looking at her. He nods, a clearly identifiable expression on his face. He’s bracing himself for the inevitable rejection; it’s a feeling she’s grown quite familiar with.

She smiles, her cheeks aching with just how wide it is. “You have feelings for me.” It’s not a statement, but a slowly dawning realization.

He nods again, his face growing more confused.

A half-dozen different things to say run through her mind. Instead, she settles on lifting her hand to his cheek before leaning in and pressing her lips to his.

There’s no finesse to it. It’s not exactly as if she’s had much practice with it. But when she feels Poe begin to kiss her back, all the worries about her skill fade away and she just lets herself _feel_.

She’s smiling when he pulls away, the stunned look on his face only causing her smile to widen.

He blinks a few times. “I’m confused.”

This time she just laughs and pokes him in the side. “You like me,” she says, and then, “and I like you.”

“You like me?” he asks, shock clear in his voice.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

“Why didn’t _you _tell _me_?”

He still looks a little awestruck and honestly, she feels the same. She laughs and shakes her head. “I thought for sure you knew and were just trying to let me down gently.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t think I was able to hide it all that well. Rose and Finn have been teasing me about my crush for _ages_.”

“Wait, what? They’ve been teasing me for the longest time about my crush on you!”

Their eyes meet and they break down in giggles, leaning into each other as they laugh. This time, when their eyes meet, it’s Poe who lifts his hand to cradle her cheek. She smiles at him, and when he asks, “Can I kiss you?” she nods, already closing her eyes in bliss.

It’s slower this time, tender, and she smiles at the joy that envelopes her while she’s in his arms.

It feels a little like coming home.

They break apart at the crackling of their comm’s and Rose’s voice coming through the radio. “Poe? Rey? Come in.”

Within moments they’re putting their shoes back on and loading up the last of their supplies. Before he opens the door, he asks her, “Ready, sunshine?”

She nods and they walk out into the daylight together.


End file.
